With a new Pope at the helm, the Catholic hierarchy has set about to polish its tarnished image. Can an increased focus on the poor make up for the Church’s opposition to contraception and marriage equality or its sordid financial and sexual affairs? The Bishops can only hope. And pray. And perhaps accelerate the sainthood of Agnes Gonxha, better known as Mother Teresa.

In the last century, no one icon has improved the Catholic brand as much as the small woman who founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose image aligns beautifully with that of the new pope. In March a team of Canadian researchers noted the opportunity: “What could be better than beatification followed by canonization of [Mother Teresa] to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful, especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman authority is in decline?”

The question, however, was more than a little ironic. The team of academics from the Universities of Montreal and Ottawa set out to do research on altruism. In the process, they reviewed over 500 documents about Mother Teresa’s life and compiled an array of disturbing details about the soon-to-be saint, including dubious political connections and questionable management of funds—and, in particular, an attitude toward suffering that could give pause to even her biggest fans.

Passive acceptance or even glorification of suffering can be adaptive when people have no choice. As the much loved Serenity Prayer says, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” This attitude of embracing the inevitable is built into not only Christianity but also other religions, especially Buddhism. But passive acceptance of avoidable suffering is another thing altogether, which is why the prayer continues, “. . . the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

By even her own words, Mother Teresa’s view of suffering made no distinction between avoidable and unavoidable suffering, and instead cultivated passive acceptance of both. As she put it, “There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering.” Or consider this anecdote from her life:

One day I met a lady who was dying of cancer in a most terrible condition. And I told her, I say, "You know, this terrible pain is only the kiss of Jesus — a sign that you have come so close to Jesus on the cross that he can kiss you." And she joined her hands together and said, "Mother Teresa, please tell Jesus to stop kissing me.”

Mother Teresa’s outlook on suffering played out in her order’s homes for the sick and dying, which doctors have described as deficient in hygiene, care, nutrition, and painkillers. Miami resident Hemley Gonzalez was so shocked by his volunteer experience that he has founded an accountable charity to provide better care. "Needles were washed in cold water and reused and expired medicines were given to the inmates. There were people who had chance to live if given proper care," . . . "I have decided to go back to Kolkata to start a charity that will be called 'Responsible Charity.' Each donation will be made public and professional medical help will be given," Gonzalez said after returning to the U.S. He also launched a Facebook page called, “Stop the Missionaries of Charity.”

Even her critics mostly believe that Mother Teresa was devoted to God as she understood him and that she was devoted to serving the poor. And yet, it would appear that her institutions have offered a standard of care that would provoke international outrage if it were provided by, say the United Nations rather than an affiliate of the Vatican. How are we to understand this paradox?

Mary Johnson is a former nun who joined Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, at age 19. For the next twenty years, she lived a life of service and austerity among the sisters, which she has described in her memoir, An Unquenchable Thirst. But beneath the stark simplicity of her daily routine stirred a host of emotional, interpersonal and spiritual complexities, including the order’s tangled view of love and pain. Johnson’s thoughtful observations offer a window into the woman who inspired her spiritual vows and who ran her order of women religious.

Mother Teresa has inspired millions to acts of sacrifice or service, much as she inspired you. But even as the Catholic Church moves toward making her a saint, others are saying she was a fraud. Your book suggests something more complicated.

Johnson: One of the reasons I wrote An Unquenchable Thirst was that none of the images of Mother Teresa in the media corresponded with the person I knew. The mainstream media created an image of Mother Teresa that reflected our desire for a perfect mother more than it reflected who Mother Teresa really was. On the other hand, those who called her a fraud often seemed determined to discredit her because they want to discredit religious faith. I very much admire the fact that Christopher Hitchens, who had been one of Mother Teresa’s most adamant critics, eventually revised his assessment of her.

Passive acceptance or even glorification of suffering can be adaptive when people have no choice, but passive acceptance of avoidable suffering is another thing altogether.The Mother Teresa I knew was a remarkably dedicated, self-sacrificing person, but not one of the wisest women I’ve known. Both empowered and shackled by religious faith, Mother Teresa was generous and unreasonable, cheerful and never content, one of the world’s most recognized women and one of its loneliest and most secretive.

As a postulant in the Missionaries of Charity, one of your superiors, Sister Dolorosa, told you, “Mother always says, love, to be real, has to hurt.” Did you believe that?

Johnson: In the beginning of my life as a sister, I tried my best to believe what I was told, including that the greatest sign of love was Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. I’d never known the sort of mutual love in which two people rejoice in each other, strengthen each other, enjoy each other. I do believe that true love is willing to suffer for the beloved when necessary, but I don’t believe that suffering is the truest or best sign of love. I certainly now reject the notion that love demands the immolation of self for the beloved, though that’s something Mother Teresa seemed to believe all her life.

During your time with the sisters, you gave up all possessions—your hair, which had to be shorn every month, an audiotape sent by your parents, even photographs. How does this relate to the fusion of love and pain?

Johnson: The Missionaries of Charity set out to live like the poor they serve. We each had two sets of clothes, which we’d wash by hand every day in buckets. We are rotting vegetables and stale bread that we’d begged from wholesale grocers. We slept in common dormitories, without any privacy, on thin mattresses we’d made ourselves. Living poorly day by day convinces you that life is hard. For a Missionary of Charity, ideal love was self-sacrificing, even to the practice of corporal penance.

Your first session of self-flagellation is imprinted in my mind: “My knees shook. I took the bunch of knotted cords into my hands. From Sister Jeanne’s stall, I heard the beating sounds, one, two, three. . . . I swung harder. The skin of my lower thighs turned red, then red with white streaks as I hit harder.”

Johnson: When I took that rope whip into my hands, I was scared, I was excited, I hoped that I was on my way to conquering my selfishness and becoming a holy person. When you visit the homes and shrines of various saints, you often see hair shirts or whips or spiked chains on display. This is a religion in which nearly every house of worship, classroom, and private home has as its most prominent feature the image of a bloodied, tortured man. We were taught that wearing spiked chains and beating ourselves allowed us to share in his work of redemption. I know it doesn’t make much sense when you say it just like that, but within that entire system it had its own weird logic.

After Mother Teresa’s death, the public learned of her struggles with anguishing doubt. You quote the words of a priest who comforted her with words that glorified her pain: “Your darkness is the divine gift of union with Jesus in his suffering. Your pain brings you close to your Crucified Spouse, and is the way you share His mission of redemption. There is no higher union with God.

Johnson: I often wish that Mother Teresa had found someone who would have encouraged her to look at her doubts honestly, to examine them, to confront them. But instead of finding someone who encouraged her to think for herself, she found Father Joseph Neuner, SJ, who spun Mother Teresa’s doubts in such a way that the doubts themselves were deemed a sign of her holiness. I believe that the anti-intellectual bias of the Missionaries of Charity can be traced to the day that Mother Teresa was told that the content of her doubts was something she ought never explore. We all tell ourselves stories that help us cope; wisdom looks at those stories and knows how to distinguish the true stories from the coping mechanisms. Mother Teresa swallowed the stories whole.

Help us to understand the theology under this mindset.

Johnson: Ah, Valerie, theology is a story that seeks to explain things. In the Catholic Church, official theology is determined by the hierarchy, who have a vested interest in keeping things as they are. When Mother Teresa admitted to the priests and bishops who were her spiritual directors that she was tormented by feelings of distance from God and by doubts in God’s existence, these priests and bishops didn’t want to encourage real questioning; they probably didn’t even give themselves permission to question deeply. Unquestioning faith enables the system to continue undisturbed. Official theology often serves politics.

In this particular case, Father Neuner taught Mother Teresa to reframe doubt as a sign that she had drawn so close to God that she shared the agony of Jesus, who cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mother Teresa’s doubts did not therefore require examination, but a greater, unquestioning faith. The adoption of such a dogmatic stance proscribed any questioning of the Church’s teachings, including those that caused such suffering to those Mother Teresa served—like prohibitions against birth control and the effective relegation of women to second-rate status in the Church. When these priests convinced Mother Teresa never to question, they were molding her into one of the most outspoken proponents of official Church teaching. The same thing happens on a smaller scale whenever a member of the faithful is taught that reason must be subjugated to belief.

Because of her opposition to contraception and her seeming disinterest in modern medicine, some have called Mother Teresa a friend of poverty rather than a friend of the poor. How do you see that?

Johnson: Most people today would say that we help the poor by helping them out of poverty. That was never Mother Teresa’s intention. Mother Teresa often told us that as Missionaries of Charity we did not serve the poor to improve their lot, but because we were serving Jesus, who said that whenever service was rendered to one of the least, it was rendered to him. Jesus promised eternal life to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked. Mother Teresa was undeniably interested in reserving a really good spot for herself behind the pearly gates. I remember once when we were having dinner and a sister was serving water for the other sisters. Mother Teresa stopped the table conversation to point to that sister and tell us, “Jesus knows how many glasses of water you’ve served to the poor. He’s counting. When you get to heaven, he will know.” I do believe that Mother Teresa had a great deal of compassion for the poor, but it’s hard to deny that she was more interested in improving everyone’s lot in the next life than in this one.

The enthusiasm for Mother Teresa’s life and work doesn’t seem to jibe with the conditions in her homes for the sick and dying. My husband and I support relief agencies like Oxfam, PATH, Water 1st and Engender Health, and like many secular donors we take time each year to make sure they are making smart use of appropriate science and technology. Why don’t supporters hold the Missionaries of Charity accountable?

Johnson: Supporters of the Missionaries of Charity are often theologically similar to the sisters, interested not so much in the (to their minds) short-term goal of helping the poor as in the long-term goal of getting everyone to heaven. It’s a little bit like certain evangelical Christians who look forward to nuclear holocaust in the Middle East because they believe devastating war will herald the end of the world and the union of all the good with God.

Toward the end of your book, you say, “So much depends on the stories we tell ourselves, and on the questions we ask, or fail to ask.” The words are a comment on Mother Teresa and her response to doubt, but I can’t help but think they also are a comment on your own journey.

Johnson: I’ve learned that every question is worth asking, even when answers elude us. I’ve learned that the stories we tell can help us live more firmly in reality or they can create an alternate reality that causes us to relate to the world in a distorted way. When I allowed myself to question the stories that I’d been told, I could finally begin to live in the real world, and I can’t tell you how liberating that felt, how freeing, how wonderful. Faith teaches you all the answers; it doesn’t tell you that those answers may be wrong. I prefer to live with the questions, and with stories that mirror the world as I experience it rather than as I’d like it to be. I wrote An Unquenchable Thirst in hopes that if I were honest about the story of my life, then I could perhaps encourage others to be honest about their lives as well.

Today, someone asked me, "When did you become an Atheist?" It was as if there was one precise minute when an official decision was made like the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I don't think a person "becomes" anything over night but I can attempt to answer by giving the process I took in becoming who I am.

I remember being around 5 or 6 and seeing my mom, who is a very devout Pentecostal, kneeling by the bed and crying her eyes out. She saw me in the room and asked that I join her. She was crying about wanting the world to be saved and for my dad.

I remember wondering who she was talking to and why she was so upset. I remember laughing because I felt so embarrassed not to know what she was doing and why. She made me kneel down and tried hard to get me to be hysterical too but I just couldn't. I wanted to go play but I felt sorry for mom being so upset and screaming at no one. I was really scared because I thought my mom had lost her mind. I felt helpless to help her and knew that who or whatever she was screaming at wasn't going to help her either.

From that time on, I suspected there was no one there but I tried hard to be agreeable and left myself open to the possibility that I was wrong until I was about 22 just to please and try to help my mom.

I went to Bible College, taught Sunday school, married a preacher, sang in church, got baptized three ways...sprinkled, "Father Son and Holy Ghost" and in "Jesus Name" (Oneness Pentecostal). I got hysterical, spending hours in a prayer room until tears poured down my face and read the bible so much that the pages of three bibles wore out. I studied Josephus, had a Strong's Concordance, Studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew and dedicated and rededicated my life to Jesus 50 times at least.

I was a missionary in Mexico and in Japan but inside I was thinking I was only asking air to do miracles. Sometimes necessary money would come and sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes good people would go to jail and be punished for things they never did and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes people would kill their children and sometimes they wouldn't. It was like shooting dice and I was slowly realizing prayer was ineffective.

I switched religions because when I was honest with myself, there was no comfort or sense of power or control that everyone had promised I would have when accepting Jesus as my Savior. I tried New Age and realized the rocks didn't have any magical power either and that it was all very silly. I tried Buddhism, Ananda Marga, yoga, reiki, and so many others only to realize they were all a hoax to get money.

Back when I was trying to be a dedicated Christian, people would ask me, when was I "saved". How old was I when I accepted "Jesus as my Savior" and wanted me to give an exact time and place. I couldn't tell. I decided to use the default by saying it was when I was 5 years old and mama got me on my knees and crying for forgiveness and salvation for the world. I just knew that when I was 5, I was just trying to please my mom and obeying her as a child is always encouraged to do.

I suppose the thing that marked my entrance into agnostism/atheism or at least make me leave church was when my dedicated, pastor and missionary husband left me for another woman and was arrested for pediphilia. I prayed long and hard for God to keep his promise and not let what was joined in Jesus' name be put asunder. I begged as my mother had 20 years earlier for my father as that is what I was taught to do when things went awry. The prayer wasn't answered as the bible promised.

Then I doubted that we were truly joined in God's eyes, that I didn't have enough faith, that no mystical intervention was going to show me "love" no matter how much I prayed or asked. I realized at about 27 years old that "the greatest love of all" was happening to me and that it was inside myself and not in church or in heaven somewhere out there.

I can't put an exact date or time when I first realized there was no imaginary friend out there who would make everything alright if you would just kneel by the bed and cry for help until your eyes fell out, I just know that I did come to that conclusion.

I have concluded that I'm an intellectual and that I believe in the power of the human race. I never for a minute think some magical being in the sky will comfort me if I just pray. I meditate for inner peace and calm but I don't ask anything of anyone...either real or imagined.

I am an atheist and very happy knowing that I have found who I really am without outside influence of other people's superstitions and fears. I can't put my finger on the exact minute but I know what I am and I'm neither proud nor ashamed. I just am and I always have been just me.

I grew up in a relatively quiet town in the North East. Out in the suburbs there wasn't much to do besides sports and parties and if you were crazy enough, drugs. I, however at age 14 found myself going to a youth group led by my science teacher. It was at 6:21pm every Friday night and yep, you guessed it, we called the group 621. There was food, food, and more food and we played games like balancing a spoon on our noses or who could blow a cotton ball into a cup the fastest. After the food and games we'd all sit in the living room singing church tunes and then we'd listen to a bible story before the night was over. It was all so wholesome and safe and fun. It was always described as a relaxed environment. "No rules, just have fun!" kids would say.

I was pretty geeky at the time. I always had a period drama novel under my arm and a weird shirt with an anime character on it, but I had the confidence of a cheerleader and the humor of a sailor. 621 was the perfect venue for weird youngsters to unite, so it was somewhat of an escape for me. I made friends with two boys that attended, B and Z. Z and I became very close friends over the next several years, but we got closer after we both left 621 for good. To me, the group changed over time and became more religious and less about fun. After leaving, Z and I spent a summer doing everything together. But even after strong friendship bonds were made, sophomore year proved to be the end of it. I was still my quirky self but Z had cut his hair, started lifting weights and dressing to fit in. It wasn't cool anymore to hang out with types like me and with so many girls now interested, there was no room for an actual girl-friend; I assumed that to be his reason for disappearing. Our friendship was then put on the back burner. I decided to take religion seriously around age 17. In that short time I became very involved in my church and even worked there full time. I put off plans for school after being influenced that college was pointless and for the worldly. Needless to say I realized what I had gotten myself into and just after my high school graduation I took the steps to leave that particular church. Z and I didn't speak again until my birthday of Senior year. He apologized for the lack of contact and the meanie he had been. He wanted to make things different. We went out a few times for food but it wasn't anything like when we were younger.

As I approached 19 I had completely left Christianity and I was so excited to tell him my story. I had gone over one night and played around with his guitar while he painted. It was as if nothing had changed. I expected to talk about everything wrong with my experience with church but instead, he made subtle hints that he had found a youth group and thought I should join. I left with a painting and a broken friendship because I knew he would never be the friend from before. I knew he was gearing up to ride down the slippery slope of Christianity that I had just limped away from, and if he had any sense he would come to the same conclusion I did: you have to get out. We talked again but only by phone. I could tell my lack of belief frightened him and his all of a sudden salvation disappointed me. I remember him asking me why I didn't believe. Years of our friendship played in my head and I thought of all the times we'd been together and never talked about religion, but all of a sudden it was the topic of discussion. I began to explain myself, but was unsure of what I should and shouldn't say. I had just gotten my friend back after years of no contact for Pete's sake. I didn't want to lose it all over a few sentences, so I held back. I told him I didn't want to talk about it with him but he insisted. He asked me questions like, "Can you disprove the resurrection?"

In my heart the conversation was already over. I knew I'd lost him to the disease of religion. He took my lack of words as defeat. I thought, "There goes another one, lost to the medieval superstitions that live on, ever potent." Okay, well maybe not something that poetic, but close. I answered indifferently, saying, "While I can't disprove the resurrection, it can't be proved. I won't tell you you're wrong, Z. All I want to tell you is to be careful! They'll use you, you know. They will literally work you and your pocket like a pyramid scheme. They did it to me because they saw something in me and it's in you too. They will use you, I can almost promise it."

He told me he was instructed on how to speak with nonbelievers. He recited his story of salvation and how he was such a screw up and a piece of shit before he found god. He said god saved him from himself and he'd be in a ditch without him.
"Age old line," I thought. I felt sick. I remembered saying things like that to my friends when I had just entered into Christianity. I remembered how blind I was and punch drunk with the fairytale of it all, and listening to Z do it was like looking into some horrifically enchanted mirror.

I suppose as an ex-Christian, watching someone be dragged into religion is like watching a loved one run towards a cliff. You try to stop them and even grab their arm, but you are a ghost now. You are dead to religion and now dead to that person. You know what's over the cliff, you know the other side because you are the other side. No matter what you say, they just can't hear you, they don't want to hear you. You are avoided like the plague for fear of corrupting their good manners with your evil. You just don't exist in their world anymore, and in my opinion, this is the actual hell, not the fire pit described in the Bible.

The conversation was already over. I knew I'd lost him to the disease of religion.I wanted to say that the resurrection is not my burden of proof. I'm not the one who believes it, so I didn't need to disprove it, that was his job. And I wanted to tell him that he was never a screw up to me. He was perfect. He was just the way any teenager usually is: clueless, unsure of themselves and still ignorant to the world. I wanted to ask him why he would love a god that tells him he's worthless and a piece of shit, but somehow unconditionally loved, simultaneously. Why would he love a god that would allow such contradicting beliefs? I wanted to ask if he realized how much I missed the old Z and hearing him glorify this religion and push me away was like watching him nose dive off a cliff. These were questions that were never asked and of course, never answered.

Instead I said goodbye and that I didn't think we'd see each other again and it was okay. That was it. I decided then, I don't care about Z's answers. I don't care if he's afraid of death or being worthless or going to hell. Deep down I know that Z is going to live out his life and do many things. He will likely grow old with his family, but in the end, we'll both end up in the same place. We all face the inevitable, and identical finale of death. It's not accompanied by angels or chariots, it's just the end. The final goodbye. I can't waste the time I have trying to distort that or make it seem less true. It's not fun but it's there. I don't sleep at night thinking that Z will go to some fiery hell for not agreeing with me. I sleep at night because I know it's okay for him to believe whatever he wants. I can sleep knowing he has a roof over his head, a loving family and food to eat. Reality helps me sleep, not fairytales or damning someone to the worst place I can imagine because I didn't get my way. As a Christian I remember getting so upset when someone didn't agree with me because I figured they'd go to hell. But now, as an Atheist, for the first time I can look at people's choices at face value and say, "So be it."

There's no fire inside of me that wishes Z would wake up. I don't want to shove a bunch of pamphlets in his face and beg him to just hear me out one morning a week. I am okay with him rejecting my reality because in the end it's just that: my reality. I have nothing to lose. My religion, my treasure, my salvation is all right here, right now. It's my friends and my family, the trees outside, the people I pass going to work. They are all complex and very different from me. I may influence them but I sure as hell can't change them and I wouldn't have it any other way. I am content with the blunt reality Atheism brings. There are no cliffs when you choose to see things for what they are: outside of your control. I am no longer the 14 year old girl in need of a good story. I do not need a fairy tale. All good things have their final moments, too. I accept it. I embrace it. And now I live it. The end.

I just got back from an emergency situation, involving my sister-in-law’s health. All’s well that ended well.

As usual, this trip provided some educational opportunities. For example, on day seven, in the rehab facility, my sister-in-law shared a room with a Catholic. An older woman brought in a small round case containing broken crackers which she handed to the Catholic patient and her daughter, saying, “The body of Christ” to each of them. They then held hands and bowed their heads, while saying words. Strange behavior.

Later on, I met the “distributor” in the hallway, to ask a question. I wanted to know if a man standing in the back of a church and holding up a cracker would also have his personal cracker “consecrated.” She couldn’t answer this, and I told her not to worry about that, because I wrote a letter to the Jesuits with that question, and they didn't reply. Since she was on her way to somewhere else, I told her that the matter was nothing to me personally. Now I realize that I should have taken my query to the Lutheran church just down the street from hers; the one with the marque posting: “Have questions?” They would have had the answer, right?

But I did want to tell her, “Isn't it bizarre that adults will believe a cracker is a living person who died two thousand years ago? That even a ﬁve year old child knows it's a cracker? And what the hell makes it so important to you that you believe it isn't? (Well, I'd like to think that it doesn't get much crazier than that, but it does. Try reading “The Apostle's Creed,” which the apostles, if they existed, never heard of…) I desperately wanted to ask those questions, but... It's impossible for me to unweave the tangled webs of dogma the believers continually wrap themselves in.

Some observations: Believers deﬁantly believe simply because there's no evidence for whatever they believe, and that's evidence enough to believe. They practice confirmation-bias reinforcements to the nth degree and call it “truth.” Honesty disturbs them. Atheism is in-your-face honesty, and disturbs them most of all. The atheist tells them that all god-beliefs have always been b.s., whether about other gods or theirs. That's just plain reality. Their precious theology is just another word for elaborate b.s.'ing. For thousands of years, trusting people have taken “holy” men (most of whom belonged in mental institutions) seriously. Religious practices have consisted of imitating mentally ill behavior, like rocking back and forth, hallucinating, babbling nonsense, repeating phrases over and over, etc. In olden days, churches encouraged imitating the self-ﬂagellation practiced by the violently insane. The hallucinating experiences of saints have been recommended as lofty goals to achieve as portals to “divine” secrets and relationships. Honestly.

Take the founder of Christianity, St. Paul, for example. A man who knew, “the mind of Christ” and urged his followers to take his word for it; a man who never met “Jesus “except as a vision. (According to him.) This is a man so gullible, that when he was told, “500 people witnessed the risen Jesus,” he believed it without question! This is the same guy who solidly believed his body was at war with his “soul;” A really messed-up- emotionally individual. He is the eloquent preacher so often quoted from pulpits and stages worldwide. (What a gift from god to have such a gullible, charismatic personality as your puppet!) Like music from a violin, he made beautiful sounds, being strung out tight as a violin's strings himself. But strung tight is no way to live life; it's mentally debilitating. And over-tightening leads to...sproing! Snapped sounds of irrationality. This irrationality goes so far that he and the rest of his followers teach that suffering is worthy of veneration because, after all, Jesus suffered for a few hours. That's craziness, whether one person copies it or many millions. That's what Christian holiness is about: Sacriﬁce. (Sadists, sign up now.) Total b.s.

Many years ago I read an interview with a master con artist. This was quite fascinating to me, because I wanted to understand how such a person operates over others. When this con man was asked how he ascertained who was a “mark,” he explained: First I tell them something outrageous, and if they believe it, I have them. (He didn’t remark about how they were willing to be conned in the first place.) What, dear reader, is more of a con than dogmas? If you disagree, you haven't really thought about dogmas.

So...Would you believe... ( Let me look you over. Five, no, twenty-ﬁve. No, how about...) 500 people really witnessed a dead man walking? Trust me. How about the true explanation of how everything came to be? No witnesses, just oral traditions, ergo, written on the wind and running water, but all true? God's word. A man ﬂoating up through the clouds, unaided? Ditto. (This is way too easy.) How about: A spook that knocked up a virgin, as she claimed? How about thousands of babies drowned and slaughtered as being morally justiﬁable? You have no problem with that? Or with the Jews being responsible for your celebrity idol's death and deserving punishment. Would you believe that an invisible force exists with a personality, outside anyone's access by senses, a silent abstraction like all the other gods, and is a “mighty fortress?” (The pile gets higher and higher.)

Without evidence, one “explanation” is equal to any other. Without evidence, a gigantic cloud of bacteria is responsible for reality. Without evidence, anything goes. And as for those who have bought and sell faith: they have lied to themselves so much that they can't tell truth from their own P.R.

Throughout my two weeks time away from home, I wore my “out of the closet Atheist” cap without getting one negative comment. I do want to remark that, LGBT’s are out of the closet and atheists, agnostics, and humanists are coming out of the closet, but “God” and gods are still in the closet and will remain there forever, as usual.

We are told to not question faiths or to point out they are b.s. It is tragically sad to point out that many have died and killed for their dogmas, and that those who praise their examples will see this as reason to hold onto them themselves. With all this in mind, I will say that if they are willing to be that dedicated and serious about those dogmas, surely, fabricating beliefs and outright b.s.'ing about them ought to be s.o.p. And is. Evidence be damned as the enemy of faith. They're buying this. Bernie Madoff would be envious of the sellers.

Even this afternoon, I caught myself doing it again after telling myself to stop it for many years. I tried Googling the symptoms but only came up with unrelated topics. What is it that I do? I have mental conversations in which I explain myself to people I don't have much contact with or don't even know personally, having only heard about them through others. I don't have these one-sided mental conversations with anyone I've ever known, and so I realized once again that these are replacements for the long distance relationship with God that I grew up with.

When I was very little, I would have my private, daily, and increasingly desperate talks with god, always saying "you" with what I only realized much later was with a small, intimate "y." He didn't respond, of course, and my "you" somehow transitioned into a conversation with myself in which "I" could not be said. As I got a little older, I did somehow realize that I didn't mean to say "you" at all and switched to "I,", but almost immediately, I began talking incessantly in my head to a pen pal that I had only met once. As the years went by, the person to whom I was/am trying to explain myself has changed, and increasingly lately as I realized more often that I'm not going to have any sort of relationship with that person.

Intellectually, I know that these one-sided conversations all come from the prayers that I was forced to say aloud in front of my family. I had to say what they wanted to hear, but in my head, I could privately express who I really was. He didn't respond, and so I understand now that I quickly moved on to other long distance "relationships."

My sister began to hear voices when she was 16 and I was 12, and my parents believed her when she said they were demons. I was terrified of the dark, of the demons that were just out of sight and hearing. With all the denial of mental illness, I never did take a single psychology course in college. After all, my parents were paying for my education, and I was so used to their continuous monitoring for the slightest hint of spiritual rebellion. It was only toward the end of high school that I started hanging out in graveyards at night with friends that I finally lost my fear. To this day, I don't turn on lights at night but make my way through the darkness because I can.

It was about the time that my sister's schizophrenia took hold (though I didn't know it was that till I was middle-aged) that I began talking to people other than God. Eventually, my inability to hear Him (now him) against the background of my parents' bitterness against each other and my brother's failed rebellion led me to Calvinistic despair in middle school. Suicidal thoughts began and have come back from time to time since then. I was desperate to hear a small, still voice, any voice really. It took my so long to realize that I was the normal one for not having schizophrenia.

No, I've never spoken to anyone real about these conversations that I cannot stop. I pursued a doctorate that both saved me intellectually and made it impossible for me to talk to any therapist; I can out reason the best of them while keeping some obsessive compulsive tendencies like this one secret. A grounding therapist gave up on me, and the app for veterans with PTSD that she suggested had no effect on me; I now see that I have RTS.

The conversations are an addiction, of course. I've always been extremely careful about any sort of physical addiction. My family's religiosity is good for that, at least, but replacing a dangerous habit that society recognizes with an emotional one that appears spiritual and healthy is also self-destructive. The unreal people who listen are vastly more attractive than the husband and child who cannot listen to what I cannot tell them. They may know me better than anyone else, but I'm not nearly so interesting to them.

Are these internal monologues a tamer version of my sister's schizophrenia, one that allows me to avoid hospitalization? I cancelled an appointment once with a psychiatrist after she told me that she wanted to "take care of me." I knew that line only too well from my upbringing and cling to my autonomy. Triggers can be good; doctors are gods all too often.

Will I ever recover from this particular aspect that underlies intense loneliness? Intellectually, I know that it was impossible ever to have that all-encompassing relationship with an inattentive, unreachable figment of my family's imagination. I was even able to walk away from some horrible relationships when I saw how they mirrored my family, but I still need to turn off this compulsive chatter of mine with strangers who never respond.

And so I've decided to move on, though here I am babbling into the Internet void. Will anyone real hear and respond? I can't tell. I know atheists and a few are former Christians, but none are as taut as I am, so much closer to that which does not exist.

Every now and then a skeptic will point out a counter-example (let’s call it anomaly X) in the universe (usually in earth) not only as an objection against theism but demanding an explanation for how theism could account for anomaly X. Suppose that one kind of anomaly could be suffering caused by natural disasters, accidents, or human folly. What occasionally happens in a discussion is that a theist would respond “God has a plan”, a skeptic might inquire “what plan?” and then the theist would reply “we do not know what the plan (let’s call it Plan A) is but it must be some kind of plan that accounts for anomaly X”.

Most of us are not satisfied with this reply and I think for very good reasons. The kind of rationale theists would often appeal to is “God’s way is always higher than our ways”, but this kind of rationale simply does not work. It does not work because the rationale “God’s way is always higher than our ways” is simply a non-sequitur: it is irrelevant to the question “What is the content of Plan A?” This may sound trivial at first but it is an important point, which I will explain.

We often try to find explanations for variety of motives or reasons, but we all can agree that if someone provides an explanation with an empty, vague, or inexplicable content then it is not a very satisfying explanation. There is really nothing to make that explanation true or false. Consider the example of the UFO aliens. Someone might ask a UFO believer “Why would the UFO’s come billions of miles away from their home to earth?” a believer might respond “It has a certain message to convey to us”. If we do not know the content of the message then we do not know what to expect to find if claims of UFO visitation are true. It is merely ad hoc.

However, the problem for the theistic reply from inexplicable divine plan goes a little deeper. In philosophy, there is an important distinction called Explanan and Explanandum. This distinction is a fancy way of saying “That which explains” and “Phenomena which is being explained”. What I’m getting at here is that an explanan that is vague, unclear, or inexplicable has not really done any explaining at all because the nature of explanation is to identify reasons or causes for certain phenomena. The explanandum simply remains a mystery since an inexplicable explanan fails to identify any cause or reason for the explanandum.

the rationale “God’s way is always higher than our ways” is simply a non-sequitur: it is irrelevant to the question. So we have a kind of rule (or rule of thumb) here: an explanation with an inexplicable content fails to be an explanation because by virtue of its inexplicability it does not identify any cause or reason for phenomena it is suppose to explain. So if Plan A has a property of being inexplicable such that it does not identify any reason for God has allowed anomaly X then appealing to Plan A fails to explain anomaly X.

A theist might respond that this does not disprove the existence of God. However, the point here is that the objection I presented was not meant to disprove the existence of God. The whole point I am driving at is that for any explanatory claim to have any explanatory value the explanation it provides must be explicable, but if it is not explicable then it lacks explanatory value. If any explanatory belief lacks explanatory value then it mitigates the plausibility of the claim. When a theist appeals to some inexplicable Plan A then she hasn't explained much, she has only appealed to a mystery to explain another mystery. This does not defend theism but it is only an act of concession that theism lacks explanatory value.

Thus, if the theist ever says "God's way is the highest way" whenever he or she appeals to an inexplicable plan A, one could always respond "Ok, suppose that I grant you that claim. Suppose that God's Plan A is the highest way compare to human plans. It still does not explain the mysterious anomaly X because it is inexplicable, we do not know what it even is. If we do not know what the content of plan A is then to say 'God's plan A is the highest way' is meaningless claim because if we do not know what the plan then we do not know in what sense the plan is the best way." A theist can insist that his or her position does not require him or her to provide an explicable plan. One could respond "Well, then that's too bad: your position lacks explanatory value so your position sounds less plausible than if you did provide a clear explanation. I have no reason to take your position seriously."

However, I am only saying that appealing to an inexplicable plan is simply a bad strategy because it means that the position one is defending lacks explanatory value which mitigates its plausibility. A more sophisticated theist (such as some of the apologists) might try to avoid this approach and try to appeal to a divine plan that is plausible, so theism does not immediately collapse from the objection I presented. However, the objection is still useful against theists who do make such an appeal to inexplicable divine plans.

I don't know what to do. Everything I have ever believed in is crumbling. Jesus has always been my everything. I always KNEW he was in control, nothing was too big for him and that I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He was my best friend. I was happy and at peace.

Now I'm broken and miserable. I never questioned the bible in my entire 22 years. I stumbled across a video on youtube about the contradictions and curiosity got the better of me. I wish I never watched that video. I feel betrayed, yet I feel like I'm the betrayer. I feel like God is still there, saddened over my shaking faith. But something tells me that's just a mental thing. I now live with the fear of a God that I'm not sure exists. I'm afraid that if I'm his chosen, then he'll do whatever it takes to bring me back. Whatever tragedy, that is. I'm terrified. Yet I still can't shake the thought that it may not be real. Sorry if this is confusing, I'm just trying to get it all out there

Either I'm making the biggest mistake of my life by questioning, or in the long run, the best decision. And to make it even more devastating, my Dad is my best and only true friend, and guess what? He's about to become a pastor. He's so in love and in awe of Jesus and how powerful he is. So much of our relationship has been built on the things of God.

Anyway, I'm certainly not Atheist as I believe that's the "non-religion" of fools because let's face it, NO ONE knows what's out there. NO ONE knows for sure there is no god. And Science sure as hell doesn't side with Atheism because Science is purely physical whereas god is spiritual. A completely different realm. I guess Im agnostic at most.

I don't wanna go through life with this guilt and fear. I don't see how it could fade with time considering I'll always be wondering if I just turned my back on my God/EVERYTHING. Has anyone else ever felt this way? And I don't want rude people throwing out the recycled "sky daddy" trash or the "cult of christianity" nonsense, because if you were ever truly in love with Jesus as I was, you could never speak about it like that even if you know/are pretty sure deep down that it's not real because it was the most important thing in your life and meant everything. Has anyone else truly been this in love with him and dependent on him?Only to get punched in the gut with this possible reality? Did you recover? Are you happy? Are you a miserable wreck like me?

I can't tell you the countless hours I spent praying to my Lord and reading my bible :'( For a better lack of wording, I'm utterly heartbroken

I was really sensitive, and the child of a preacher. When I was very small (even age 3), they kept telling me "Jesus died for your sins" and telling me the gruesome crucifixion murder story over and over. I thought I'd killed God... The guilt overwhelmed me. I thought I was a terrible person who deserved to die a horrible death.

"Jesus died for your sins"??? Even though I heard it thousands of times since infancy, the idea that a loving God requires human sacrifice makes no sense to me now. In fact, it seems bizarre!

Now I'm trying to figure out why people would do this to kids. Many people have been brainwashed and try to brainwash kids because they honestly (mistakenly, but honestly) believe it's a loving thing to do.

What about the originators & top leaders of the religion? Did they intentionally create this story to manipulate people with guilt? If so, was it for money, power, or some other reason? Guilt-ridden people are very easy to manipulate & control. Does the crucifixion story have any basis in fact? Even the Santa Claus story was apparently inspired by some guy called St. Nick.. . .

I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this. After all, Christianity and Christian guilt have huge influence in many parts of the world. Some Christians reject, bully or even murder gays & lesbians in the name of God, for example. I'm trying to wash my own brain from that early brainwashing!

The next installment in a series of videos that chronicle month by month the reported horrid acts committed by the followers and leaders of religions from around the world. This fifth episode illustrates the hate, bigotry, and ignorance spread by religion from mid March 2013 to mid April 2013. You may be shocked at how much harm religion can cause in just one month. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

I think simple logic points the way to an excellent test of whether a god is a real or true god, as opposed to a human creation. Now this test may not be absolutely perfect, but the failure rate can easily be proven to be extremely low, less than 0.0004% (less than 1 part in 2,500).

I propose that any god who/which is claimed to be invisible is a false god.

How can we know this, you ask? Well, consider that all of the gods that man has invented throughout history, that have been believed in for any length of time, have been invisible to the common man - or at least out of sight, like the ancient Greek gods high up on Mount Olympus.

The following site lists the names of over 2,500 gods which have been believed in and worshiped by convinced followers in historic times: http://www.rationalresponders.com/a_big_list_of_gods_but_nowhere_near_all_of_them . This is where the 2,500 comes from in my error-rate calculation above. There are doubtless thousands of others we know nothing about because they are from prehistory and /or non-literate cultures.

Of course, legends have it that a few humans actually saw a god, as is claimed for Moses, but Moses was not a common man, so for all the rest of us, Bible-god is invisible.

But what about Jesus? Didn’t people see Jesus? Well, that is debatable. All anyone “knows” about Jesus has come to us second-hand, in the writings of others. He left no writings himself, and there are no pictures or video. But, if some people actually did see Jesus, it was a tiny fraction of the world’s population, and it was for a very brief period. While many Christians today claim to have a “relationship” with Jesus, he is nevertheless invisible to the common man. Even those who claim to have this relationship don’t actually see Jesus.

According to the Bible, Bible-god wants desperately for people to know that he exists and to worship him. Now consider that we really can only be absolutely certain of a god we can actually see or detect with instruments; a god who proves beyond a shadow of a doubt by his testable actions in the real, physical world that he exists.

So far, the only scientific, objective tests of Bible-god have had to do with prayer, and those tests have consistently failed to prove the existence of that god. (See http://new.exchristian.net/2011/03/personal-god.html for examples.)

I think it is safe to say that all of those gods listed in the link above, and those thousands more which couldn’t be listed, were claimed to be invisible to - or otherwise hidden from - the common man. We know this because any visible god could easily be tested, would have been tested, and thus would have been proven false, and those who created these gods were well aware of this. If we throw a rock at a visible god and it hits him, does he say “ouch?” Does he bruise like a human? Testing visible gods is ridiculously easy, and that’s why man has always invented invisible gods.

Since we now know that ALL gods other than Bible-god that were believed in for any length of time were invisible, and all were false, the odds are overwhelming, thousands-to-one, that Bible-god, being likewise invisible, is also a false god.

At this point some believers will claim that god wants us to prove our faith by believing in him despite our not being able to see him. Well, since it’s a fact that we can’t see him, shouldn’t we expect his cheerleaders to come up with something like this? What else could they do? Should we really just accept such an obviously transparent argument? If Jesus provided visible proof of his resurrection and deity status to Doubting Thomas, as the Bible contends, then he surely thought Thomas had a valid doubt. Why should we be expected to be satisfied with less evidence than Thomas was provided?

If Bible-god truly existed and wanted mankind to believe in him, as the Bible says, then the obvious way to accomplish this would be to make himself visible so that we could easily test him and then believe - all of us – without doubts. But, as attentive humans have noted, the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. Invisibility has always been used as a cover for nonexistence, since the very first gods were created. Why should we think it would be any different for Bible-god?

And really, there’s no need to be afraid of incurring a god’s wrath for a mistake. At this late date in history, surely no reasonable god could expect us to believe in yet another invisible god.

Despite the near weekly revelations of these and other crimes against fellow humans, Christians across the board deny their existence or they minimize them, saying that it's only a few bad people, a few isolated instances. The facts, of course, demonstrate a very different reality.

All of the numerous and growing number of christian crimes are forever recorded in the news headline archives, police, state and federal criminal records. They've been going on for so long, they are included in history books --the history of church crimes against humanity.

And they are in fact crimes.

Pedophilia is a crime. covering up pedophilia and other crimes is itself a crime. Extortion, corruption, sexual, emotional and physical abuse are crimes.

But Christians seem to believe that these are not really crimes. And despite their verbal protests to the contrary, Christians demonstrate that they approve of --condone-- these crimes perpetrated by their fellow Christians by paying money to the very institution that harbors these criminals. It supports and defends them.

Christians use the term "tithing" a practice of giving money, usually expressed as a percentage of their personal income, to the organization to pay the salaries, housing, clothing, food, entertainment and legal defense of criminals.

In fact, Christians not only pay the organization, they defend this practice and their right to do so. They may cite that money goes to missions, child care(!), the poor and so on, when in fact most money given goes into operating funds for the purposes cited earlier. They turn a blind eye and "wish away" the real problems that they willingly bankroll.

(Some have the temerity to say that they give money to do "god's work." If housing, supporting and defending pedophiles and a variety of other criminals is god's work, that is to say, part of "god's plan..." Well, that's another Epic discussion for another time.)

In America, there is another term for the practice of giving money, shelter and any help to criminals. It's called "aiding and abetting" criminals and their activities.

Is it moral to knowingly and willingly pay an institution that supports and defends criminals and their activities? Is it moral for a person to give money to an institution that supports and defends abuses and abusers?

Make this statement sound moral: "I pay money to a church or church-related institution that besides helping the poor, uses those funds to harbor, support and defend pedophiles and other abusers. But when I give my money it isn't for all that bad stuff."

You can't do it.

In modern terms, what Christians are doing is crowdsource-funding known criminals and their activities.

Why are these people and organizations allowed to receive and distribute money? Aren't they just like the Islamic "charities" that made the headlines at the beginning of American wars against the people of the middle east? Those charities gave money to the poor, too, but also paid to house, feed and protect criminals --just like christian organizations do.

The US government froze the Islamic charities' funds and prosecuted the givers because they were bankrolling what in reality is another form of crime called terrorism. Why are christian organizations allowed to operate freely and unchecked?

So, when you next think about your christian neighbor, co-worker, babysitter, school teacher, soccer mom, or politician --and know that they willingly and knowingly give money, by which action they condone the activities of and "aid and abet" known criminals and their activities, do you consider them to be in any way "moral"? Really?

Or can you call them what they are: people who approve of and perpetuate some of the greatest crimes against humans today --and those christian-funded crimes are happening while you are reading this.

It is indeed a great tragedy and truth that religion has hijacked morality. It's an even greater tragedy that these religious people and organizations are allowed free reign to carry on, unabated, harming humans --scarring some for life-- under the guise of their "morality."

Given the facts, I must say that "christian morality" is a very unique point of view.

I have watched the RTS videos and read many of the articles and comments on Ex Christian; and I found people going through much that I also grappled with. I think that while I pursued a vigorous skepticism I never became cynical. Of course I could enjoy George Carlin but I didn't find that Carlin or Hitchens or Dawkins made any compelling arguments. What I found early in my life to be the problem with church is much of what Marlene describes.

I would disagree from a purely intellectual standpoint about what the actual toxic effects are. It is obvious that anyone leaving a "religion" which they believed would go through Kubler-Ross's stages of grief; but that doesn't argue the validity of a religion or that it is toxic.
What I did find Marlene speaking about, that caused me to make the most critical examination of religion per se is the conversion phenomena itself, and this whether it may appear spontaneous from upbringing or incited by life experience.

I had watched the Bill Murray movie Stripes, and at the end of basic training he convinces the troops to complete graduation with an emotional appeal to "Ol Yellar", "everybody cried when Ol Yellar died". Fascinating! the Jesus on the cross story was my Ol Yellar! I coined the name at the time "Ol Yellar Syndrome". This merely allowed me to see how the "preachers do it". Then another problem arose, why should human's incur Ol Yellar Syndrome in response to sacrifice. Why should sacrifice be heroic, for heroism is the legacy of sacrifice that makes us unite under "I am Spartacus", not only is the completed tale called heroic because the sacrifice is completed, those who first followed the one who would be hero did so because they perceived that he would sacrifice.

Then I encountered a statement by Napoleon who would not allow the Pope to crown him, but instead crowned himself; therefore he did not appear to suffering Religious nearly as much as he would Waterloo. Napoleon said that he new greatness and Jesus was the greatest man who ever lived. Of course that doesn't prove Jesus was great, but why should Napoleon think so? I think I know, and perhaps I can illustrate, it's called the psychopath test: You are near a train track train headed toward a break in the track, if the train hits the break it will wreck and kill many people; there is a man standing beside you and you can save all those lives if you throw him onto the tracks and stop the train, of course he will be killed. Would you do it to save lives? A psychopath would have no problem doing it or not doing it; but normal people would, the lives of the many or the life of the one? Of course there is another solution, you could jump onto the track yourself. Now if you threw the man over your a psychopath, but a hero to the people on the train. If you jump your a hero to both the man and the people on the train. If you do nothing your just a witness to a tragedy. I believe Napoleon saw himself as the one who wouldn't flinch to throw the man over and win the gratitude of those on the train, but he saw Jesus as the one who would jump. It is seeing Jesus as the man who jumps that causes the Ol Yellar Syndrome to work. But why see what Jesus did as heroic? Why Jesus or anyone think he was making a sacrifice?

There is a detailed explanation of why what Jesus did has real personal significance today, and this is the significance of the scapegoat as it is analyzed by Rene Girard. An example he gives is two children fighting over a toy, then an innocent “fat kid” walks up and says can I play, the two who were fighting then unite and take out their aggression on the “fat kid”, and after they run him off go back to playing share their toy and talk about how gross the “fat kid” was. The “fat kid” is the victim of the Scapegoat phenomena which is so common to everyone, and to societies on all levels that it would be proper to call it the “original sin.” Girard clearly outlines not only the Scapegoat phenomena but how Jesus turned it inside out in such away that it destroyed a majority the religious toxicity in Jewish and Pagan culture all over the world where the “gospel” is preached. This occurs only for two reasons, first that it is obvious from the story that Jesus is innocent (that is why the the Ol Yellar syndrome works at all); and second that this innocent died in a heroic context, Jesus is Spartacus because he is opposing injustice in the religious establishment, the enslavement of religious toxicity at all levels of society. He is thrusting violently in everyones face “I am the Scapegoat, and scapegoating ends here and now with me if you believe I'm the Lamb of God! With my bloody sacrifice it's finished forever!” Jesus is the ultimate “fat kid” for us, our children, and society, and religion, and politics. Freedom from the sin of scapegoating is found in the cross. Historically this is true on a massive scale and is why world religion and politics appeal to Jesus for validity; not because the majority of the world is christian but because the Ol Yellar Syndrome is common to all men except psychopaths. The Myth is that powerful! Even if Jesus was not God.

Now suppose Jesus was not God, but he was “enlightened” enough to perceive this was possible because he was born at a unique period of history in which he could fulfill Old Testament prophecy. Suppose he studied Daniel's 70 heptads (in Daniel chapter 9), and understood that if he learned magic, of the David Blaine and Chris Angel type, he make himself appear to be God and fulfill those prophecies which could be interpreted to end scapegoating. Jesus is then doubly heroic to the atheist for he sacrificed himself, using his deception for the most noble end in history. Is this what Napoleon saw? So if Jesus was a liar he is a hero. But suppose Jesus was a lunatic, and a magician, and it just worked out that it solved the scapegoat problem, maybe God did it maybe he didn't, then Jesus is a hero even to the agnostic. That is the power of the Ol Yellar Syndrome!

If this unique confluence of events had not occurred in Jesus atheism would have never had a chance, for it had always been a minority, and it's philosophers put to death as scapegoats. But because of Jesus being preached to the world the enlightenment and renaissance and scientific revolution were possible, and they did occur in the “nominally” Christian west.

Now my point is that nominal Christianity should be deconstructed, religious toxicity should be healed, but this cannot be done by making nominal Christianity a new Scapegoat to oppose. If you are separating from Christianity, use the stages of grief constructively and don't be sucked into an atheism that is religious, and does have scapegoat agenda. Learn from Jesus even if you don't believe he is God to let scapegoating end. Honest skepticism is not a sin, dishonest cynicism prevents you from realizing your potential.

When I was a child I went to Sunday School class every week. We learned a bit about the "Old Testament" God, but mostly we learned about Jesus. We would sit down at little tables and tiny chairs in front of a "flannel board" and while the teacher gave the lesson for the week we usually had a colouring page to work on.

I sort of liked going to Sunday School with the crafts that we got to do but I struggled terribly with understanding the lessons. I am native-blooded (sorry for privacy's sake I am too afraid to say more than that about my racial identity for fear someone will read this-like a former Sunday School teacher- and know who I am), so I just wasn't mentally and emotionally understanding the lessons the way that the white children did. Colouring a picture of an ancient Israelite priest in a temple made no sense to me. What's a priest? What's a temple? What's an Israelite? However it was during all of these many lessons that I came to learn about Jesus. I didn't understand how someone who lived so long ago could be important to my life.

But I started to grow fond of Jesus. I was taught that he loved children (here we'd colour a picture of Jesus holding some children on his lap) and that he worked miracles to heal a paralyzed man (here we'd do a finger puppet craft to show Jesus healing the man). I was taught that he got nailed to a cross for me and all I needed to do was pray and accept this gift of eternal life. One day he'd have a mansion in heaven for me (here we'd see a flannel board picture of a throne with a rainbow and some clouds and pearl gates), never mind that I'm native and my own idea of "heaven" is endless trees, mountains, animals and plains. What really moved me though was a play I saw in which Jesus' crucifixion was acted out right in front of me (fake blood and screams and all). It was very heartbreaking, touching and I could not understand why anyone would not want this Jesus to save them and be part of their life. They told us he never sinned, never did a bad thing, and he died only for us. Who can hate a man like that? Grandfather had a picture at his house called "Last Supper". For some reason I was quite drawn to it, I felt peaceful looking at it.

When I became a teenager I wanted to "get serious" about Jesus. I wanted to make sure I was really saved and not going to go to hell. So I decide to find out everything possible about Jesus. As soon as I started this spiritual journey I became shocked by the difference between the Jesus I'd learned of in Sunday School and the Jesus of scripture. To me they were like two separate people. I didn't recognize the scripture Jesus. I became very, very scared. In a way I liked this new Jesus I was learning about. He was certainly passionate, he had what I call "fire in his spirit", he got outraged about certain things (like hypocrites), wasn't afraid to say things that were socially unacceptable, he sweat tears of blood...he was not this one-dimensional ever-smiling high-fiving guy from the flannel board. I have to admit I was a bit creeped out by the robotic Sunday School Jesus who had no real emotions except a very sterile "love." Flannel-board Jesus from Sunday School was not even remotely human. But I was not prepared to encounter scriptural Jesus and the trauma that resulted.

As for Sunday School Jesus, which I could always count on to keep me safe and never hurt me, there was scripture Jesus telling me it is better to mutilate my body than go to an eternal fire. "It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire." We didn't talk much about eternal fire in Sunday School. We talked about "eternal separation from God" for "the wicked", but not people-ordinary people- living forever in a literal fire and never being able to die. Is the fire real, I wondered? I walk close to a bonfire. I stick my hand close. It is too hot to be this close. I cannot imagine my hand being inside this flame, even for a few seconds. I decide that I must stop sinning for I cannot bear the flames. My flannel board image of Jesus, all white robe and blue sash, welcoming me into his bright eternal kingdom (he's giving me a ruby crown, naturally) is now replaced with white-haired, flame-eyed, burning bright Jesus "dressed in a robe dipped in blood." Dipped in blood? Whose blood? His enemies? "But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them--bring them here and kill them in front of me."- So clearly he does not love everyone. He does have enemies and he does want them slayed. I am becoming very very intimidated by this Jesus I am reading of in scripture. I know that I don't want to be his enemy, for he is too powerful. I decide I will work very hard not to sin so that I do not become the enemy of this fearsome god- man. I become the world's most painfully honest person- afraid to tell even a little bitty white lie. "Every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Again with the fire. And by tree, he means person. And good fruit must be good deeds, or something. It seems like almost everything I read from the lips of Jesus revolves around this fire. I begin to have nightmares of people being set on fire. In my mind I can no longer separate Jesus from the fire, they are like two sides of one coin.

"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." I think of the things that people, enemies, could do to me. A serial killer could get me. He could take me to his basement and torture me slowly until I finally die. I am scared, very scared, of what an evil person could do to me or my loved ones. Bible Jesus says that the horror that he and God can inflict on me is so much worse, so much more infinite, than what the serial killer could do that I should not even worry about the serial killer. Even if I am tortured by an evil killer, it's nothing as compared to eternal hellfire. I try harder..harder...harder....not to sin. I try not even to say a curse word (thats a sin,right?). I stop listening to music. To love Jesus with all my heart, somehow, even though he really scares me. I wear myself out.

I break down. I lose myself in all the fear. I "revert." I start praying at night not saying the name "Jesus" but rather "Great Spirit". It feels okay. It's the same prayer. In all the confusion I become agnostic, remain agnostic. That's where I am right now. I continue to have both a love and horror of Jesus and whether he exists or not I do not pretend to know. What I do know is that the difference between the Jesus presented in Sunday School/movies/story books and the Jesus presented in scripture shocked me in many ways and that my investigation into scripture traumatized me, enlightened me, intrigued me, repulsed me. I'm glad I've taken this journey of spiritual discovery because I am a person driven to get to the truth. I have not arrived yet and don't expect to know the deepest truths until I have died and left this world behind. This universe is just too vast and I am a little ant crawling around trying to find a few grains of truth. The only thing I know for sure is to follow the "golden rule".

I guess that some people would call me a “non-believer.” I wouldn't call myself that, although, yes, when it comes to many religious beliefs that many people firmly hold onto, I am certainly not as firm a believer as others.

There are many things I would like to believe; however, that does not mean that I CAN wholeheartedly do this, no matter how I hard I pray or mull them over in my mind or discuss them with other people. Contrary to many people's opinions, the reason for my unbelief is not my own choice, my own doing, something I purposefully worked towards; rather, it's just the way that my mind functions, added to the combination of events, people, and places that have made up my life so far.

I've heard many people say that they would not choose certain parts of their lives, because they are just too difficult. People do not choose to be gay. People do not choose to be angry. People do not choose to be atheists. My co-worker did not choose to be a mother to a child who later developed schizophrenia – she loves her son very much, but it is a very difficult thing to be a mother to a child with schizophrenia. I would not choose to be the cynical, sceptical person I am – but that's how I am, and the most I can do is deal with it in the best way I know how.

But, back to this thing about being a “non-believer”.. There are many beliefs that I struggle with - we don't have to get into those right now. But I do believe.

When I back up the funeral home van to a set of doors at the back of the hospital and walk into the morgue, ready to transfer Mr. L or Mrs. T or Mr. R, I believe that it is very likely that this is not in fact the absolute end of life – just the end of life as we know it.

When I looked at Mr. S – a middle-aged man who had committed suicide in a very bizarre manner – lying in his casket, ready for to be viewed one last time by family and friends that he had left behind, I believe that he finally made his escape from a world that he couldn't handle and is in a better place.

When everyone else has left the cemetery and only the funeral home staff remain at the grave, waiting for the cemetery staff to finish the work of burying those no longer with us, I believe that all will be well, even if we cannot see it in the moment.

When I see weeds pushing their way through the soil each spring, I believe that life is wonderful, that this life-force is one whose beginnings and whose persistence are magical.

When I see the colours of the fall, when my breath is almost taken away by the sight of this beauty, I believe that there is something spectacular in nature that all of science and all of religion cannot simplify into words.

When I drive through the mountains and ponder the ideas that masses of ice covered what is now lush green grass and tall trees and that dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I believe that the millions of years that preceded my 29 years of life and the millions of years that may likely follow my 29 years of life are full of astounding events beyond my wildest dreams.

When I'm at the nursing home and hear J happily singing, “And He walks with me, and He talks with me,” I know that although I'm not so certain about the God I was once so certain about, I still believe that I will be looked after, that I don't walk alone, that someone one or Someone out there understands me, that someone is holding my hand.

When I hold the hand of a dying person, when I hear her struggle with her last breaths, when I look into her eyes and can tell that she will soon be saying goodbye to this life, I believe that there is a significance to each person's life and death, even if we do not understand it with our limited knowledge.

I may not believe in everything that I am “supposed” to believe in, but what I do believe is enough.

I got hit with a bout of depression today. It followed a movie I watched entitled, "The Apostle". Robert Duvall played a southern evangelist, very charismatic, who killed the man who was having an affair with his wife. Then he left town and with a new identity was able to get a new church started in a mostly African American area in a town in Louisiana. Good movie, but I got depressed, anyway.

Despite the fact that I have been an exchristian for years this movie touched me deeply. It brought back memories of what I thought Christianity could be. The members of the church in this movie were all poor and had practically nothing to call their own. The evangelist was a true believer. He was not mean or arrogant, but loved the people. His sermons were of the kind commonly seen in Southern black churches, highly emotional and effective to people in emotional need, especially. He filled a definite need of these people for love and special attention.

Jesus, as the preacher presented him, gave them meaning and purpose. Otherwise, what did life have to offer them? They had virtually no education were barely scraping by economically and no real future This evangelist gave them hope, albeit through the mythical Jesus. This phenomenon is common in poor areas in the South and other poor areas of the country. Xtianity fills a definite need there. This is not the kind of Xtianity from whom we see so much hate, who are involved in right wing politics. These people are the real thing, so to speak.

I think all or at least virtually all members of exchristian.net are educated middle class folks, at the least. The various methods discussed on the forums are for educated people, people who have choices, people who have better coping mechanisms than the uneducated or poor. I don't mean that deconversion is not a real tough struggle for many exchristians; it can be and is. But how much more so is it for the kind of people I'm talking about?

I don't believe that there are many of the uneducated or poor who deconvert for the every reason I am addressing. So I started thinking about what we have to offer those people? What if the opiate of the people were withdrawn from them? Joseph Campbell's position was that we need a new myth, because myth serves a purpose. My question is, should Xtianity be withdrawn from these poor folks? And, if so, what should be used in its place?

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